


A Thousand More

by agent_romanoff_did_ya_miss_me (celtic_cappucino)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Insecure Tony Stark, Masks, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19799194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celtic_cappucino/pseuds/agent_romanoff_did_ya_miss_me
Summary: A thousand times he could have done something,anythingbetter. And a thousand more he'll spend thinking about what he should have done.But it's okay. Because he's okay. As long as he can convince himself, nobody notices.





	A Thousand More

Something could always have been improved. He's managed to keep it together long enough to get things done, to get through the day. Because a functioning human being is what people want to see. They need someone to fix the broken things. But who will fix him when he's broken?

Press conferences, meetings for SI and the Avengers, out to lunch, hours spent in the workshop. "Smile for the camera, look happy," they say. "Even if it's fake," they joke. Lucky for them, he's good at feigning happiness. He's had practice.

"Are you okay?" Natasha has the courage to ask one day. No response. "Tony?" She seems worried, which is new for the assassin. He stares off into space, never acknowledging her presence.

"Earth to Tony!" He shakes himself out of it. The redhead is right by his side, tilting her head comically. "You good?"

"Society is some messed up shit," he muses. Natasha makes a small noise of agreement.

He just stared at a wall for twenty minutes and came up with that conclusion.

"Not that I'm disagreeing, but why today is society on your mind?" Tony shrugged.

"Eh, I dunno. Just thinking." There was silence for a minute and twenty four painful seconds. "Y'know what else is messed up?" Natasha shook her head. 

"The fact that when you are actually aware of the human brain working, it's dizzying because of how quickly it works. All the cognitive elements and the gears turning, and the connections connecting, and the realizations being realized, and everything being either gently placed or shoved into place, or its supposed place, like a 5000 piece puzzle," he rambled.

The assassin could understand. His brain was constantly in need of something to do. Information to process, theories to develop, equations to solve in his sleep. Code to write, things to do, what to say, when to eat, taking in all of the data and scanning it over, figuring out what needed to be fixed or upgraded or replaced or...

His brain was hungry.

The man surrounded himself with his own technology. FRIDAY and JARVIS, DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers, hell, even the holographic screens displaying everything were designed and created by him. They didn't give him enough credit.

The SHIELD-issued Widow's Bites and Clint's bow had operated like they'd been created out of a recycled water bottle and a can opener. After their first mission as the Avengers in the 2012 battle of NY, Tony worked for 18 hours straight on replacements.

His brain worked so fast, taking in three times the information as a usual human being, processing it twice as quickly and efficiently, coming up with multiple different answers to the same problem. He started college at _fifteen._ Most fifteen year olds might just be getting their learner's permit or working at a fast food place. And here he was, graduated from MIT with a handful of PhDs, Masters and Bachelors that nobody even knew about currently tucked away in a dust-collecting file cabinet that hadn't been opened in over thirteen years.

His real title should be Dr. Anthony Stark, but why go around flaunting the title he didn't deserve? It took enough of his sanity to go through one lousy day of securing the mask that the public knew him as. It was unfair, he thought, that he should have those titles if he'd earned them with such ease

He was okay, and as long as he could convince himself, nobody else would know.

-

"A+ job there," Steve growled sarcastically, watching as Tony was hit out of the sky by a flash. 

"Yeah, well, I don't see you getting any closer than you are now," he responded evenly with the same amount of sass, taking a moment to regain his breath before returning to the fight. Something in his left arm clicked and a burning pain began throbbing just below his shoulder. "Shit," he mumbled, spinning around mid-air. "Thor, watch your back!"

The HUD framing his vision was lined with all sorts of information. Updates on the suit, his own health, bad guys, good guys, and comm speakers, while he himself was running all sorts of probabilities through his head and shaking off the bad ideas, reasoning with the good ones until he found a flaw in the plan. All in the span of a second.

"Stark, you good?" Clint piped up, noticing the unusual silence from his end of the comms. Usually there was some sort of muffled chatter, talking to himself and stating plans.

"Ye-yeah, I'm fine. Totally and completely a-okay." He hid the tremor in his voice, ignoring the pain in his arm, giving Hawkeye a mock salute. Because his team needed their upgrades and SHIELD needed the funding for their next idiotic idea. He made a mental note to skip the team meeting tonight and immediately go work on a new arrow prototype for Clint. The shoulder could wait.

He was okay, and as long as he could convince himself, nobody else would know.

-

As the only Avenger actually allowed to talk to the press, today should have been fine. It was just like any other day. But of course something had to go wrong. A question he was unprepared for. The room spinning slowly. Things blowing out of proportion. The mask started to crack.

As soon as he noticed his hands starting to shake he stuffed them into his pockets and took a quick breath. _I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm **fine.**_

"Alright, next question?" he moved on, readjusting the tint on his sunglasses to block out the dark circles tracing his eyes. Standing taller, chin higher, rocking ever so slightly on his heels. He was an expert at fixing the mask, turning his mouth into a quick smirk, tossing a few quips into the flurry of questions being tossed his way, all the while thinking up three new blueprints and how he should go about improving the coffee machine.

There was no sign of the near breakdown, because he was okay, and as long as he could convince himself, nobody else would know.

**Author's Note:**

> I- I don't know what came across me.... I hate writing angst...
> 
> hajdjskks I'm truly sorry


End file.
